


Let's Rob a Bank

by NyxieBlack



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: But whatever, Eye Scream, Gen, Kinda, Lies, Misunderstandings, Murder, No Beta, Pre-Canon, as all campaigns seem to, bank robbing, if you follow my dc fanfic you should know that Shelf is an exaggerated Rac Shade, it starts in a bar, so thats who were dealing with, this is based on a campaign where almost everyone was neutral or evil, this probably isnt accurate to some canon, wild magic surge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-10 20:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxieBlack/pseuds/NyxieBlack
Summary: Alvi the Astounding is a rogue making ends meet by performing sleight-of-hand tricks for tips. Shelf Penumbra is a sorcerer poet who lives outside of town. When the two meet at Puddlemore Pub on open mic night, Alvi can tell they don’t have much in common. That is, outside of a knack for getting into trouble and the capacity to rob a bank on a whim.





	Let's Rob a Bank

**Author's Note:**

> An explanation: I started writing this to get a feel for how these characters would interact with each other when I had to briefly play both of them at once in my last D&D campaign. That campaign just wrapped up, and I figured why not finish this?

Every third Thursday of the month, Puddlemore Pub put on an event where just about anyone could take the stage and put their talents on display for tips. As usual, sleight-of-hand magician Alvi the Astounding was there, seated at his usual table, watching the usual crowd of performers trying their hand at coaxing the other patrons out of a copper or two. If you asked him, most who took the stage fell somewhere on the spectrum from mediocre to terrible. For example, the performer on stage at that very moment could have used their hopelessly discordant ukulele strumming as a weapon. Alvi wondered how someone could sing the same song every month for at least a year straight and only get _worse_. 

After the last verse yodeled to a blessed halt, the pub’s owner stepped onto the miniscule stage and cleared his throat. However, most patrons were lost in their own conversations or card games or drinks. The few who were paying attention were pointedly silent. 

“Next up is a familiar face,” the man on stage announced. “Alvi the Astounding!” 

The general chatter didn’t stop, no one clapped. Hell, one person laughed. Alvi lied to himself that it was a laugh of delighted surprise—that person couldn’t wait to see what he had in store for the night! Whatever he could tell himself to get him on that stage, he’d gladly tell himself. Last month, he tried to convince himself that he was being held hostage. If he didn’t put on a great show, he’d get a dagger through the eye, courtesy of a shadowy assassin. 

At the end of the night, his act was average. He didn’t set himself on fire, but he also left his deck of cards in his other jacket, and they were the crux of his big finisher. The never-ending handkerchief bit got a smattering of applause, and the person who volunteered to be his assistant proved to be fortuitously inattentive of their coin purse. 

Overall, Alvi was feeling pleased when he alighted the stage. He was spending the pilfered coppers on whiskey when the next performer was being announced—someone by the name of “Shelf Penumbra.” 

A fire-haired half-elf practically drowning in colorful scarves and loose clothing took the stage. Just the fact that he was a rare stranger was enough to catch Alvi’s attention, as he crossed back to his spot at his rickety table. The clothes the new guy wore were ratty, but they almost certainly cost a pretty penny when they were new. Alvi guessed this “Shelf” character was one of two types of people: One, he was some rich guy who fell on hard times. Two, he was some rich guy who was on holiday from his life of luxury in an attempt to live “authentically.” Based on the shoddy rhymes and cliché laden poems he was subjecting the pub to, he was the latter type. Which meant he had money, and that he wasn’t the brightest. Which meant Alvi was going to stick around to see if he could maybe earn as much as a silver tonight, maybe rent out the best room at the inn. Not wake up the next morning from cheap bedding. That’d be nice. 

By the time Shelf was done on stage, Alvi was flashing his most charming smile at the heavily tattooed barmaid, trying to keep her attention as he flirted with her. He was interrupted by a voice to his left asking, “Is this seat taken?” 

Alvi looked up to see the wannabe poet, resting one hand on the back of the table’s other chair. “Nah, it’s free,” he replied, before trying to turn back to the barmaid, who was helping another patron. 

“Alvi the Astonishing, right?” Shelf asked, sitting down. 

“…Yes,” Alvi replied. “Shelf Pendulum, right?” 

“What? No, it’s _Penumbra_,” Shelf responded with a genuineness that Alvi wasn’t used to. 

“My mistake. You new in town, Penumbra?” 

“Yes. My girlfriend and I are living in a commune just outside the border.” 

“Girlfriend, huh? She here tonight?” 

The right corner of Shelf’s mouth twitched a bit, but his smile remained fastened to his face. “She said she had a headache, so she’s back at camp,” he answered. 

_Sounds like there’s trouble in paradise,_ Alvi thought. “How ‘bout I get us a couple drinks,” Alvi said, flagging down the barmaid. She saw him from across the tavern and whispered something to the barkeep. In the corner of his eye, Alvi could have sworn he saw a multi-colored haze hanging around the half-elf. When he turned back to him, there was nothing too out-of-the-ordinary about him. Odd. 

“It isn’t necessary, but I won’t say no,” Shelf replied, still grinning away. The barkeep set two glasses of something strong at their table. “I came over to talk about your act,” Shelf continued. 

Alvi couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “Oh?” he replied. 

“I thought it was amazing,” Shelf elaborated. “How did you get that handkerchief to never end? And with no somatic or verbal elements!” 

Alvi searched Shelf’s face for any sign of dishonesty, but he couldn’t find a speck of it. Not to mention, if there’s one thing Alvi loved, it was flattery. “A magician never reveals his secrets,” he replied, internally kicking himself for invoking a cliché. 

“Is that so?” Shelf replied. “Mage college taught us differently.” He said an unfamiliar word and snapped with both his hands. Over the tabletop sprung a mini light show, sparks spreading in brightly colored almost-flowers. Alvi had never seen anything like it. Shelf continued talking, his words fast, excited. “You see, anything discovered there was shared and dissected until they understood in down to the root.” He disappeared the lights in his hands, grasping them one by one like a child trying to gather soap bubbles. “The whole process is very…” He looked up, eyes flitting across the ceiling, searching. “…sterile,” he finished, his gaze snapping back to Alvi. “I find it utterly bereft of _emotionality_.” 

_Oh, this guy really thinks I’m a wizard or something_, realized Alvi. The fellow did seem rather gullible, but he had stumbled into stroking Alvi’s ego, and Alvi was going to let him keep at it. So, he employed another one of his talents: bullshitting. Keep Shelf talking and see where the night goes. “Ah yes, emotionality,” he mused. “I always thought those academy types were too stuffy for their own good. In fact—” 

“_Exactly!_” Shelf interrupted. (Good. Alvi didn’t know what he was going to say next, anyways.) “That’s why I invested myself in poetry, you know. Poetry is nothing more than the purest verbal distillation of emotion one can muster.” 

Alvi took a swig of his drink. In the minute or so they had spoken, he surmised that Shelf was the kind of person who could talk for hours. Eh, it wasn’t like Alvi had anywhere to be. 

“And as a wild magic practitioner, I find that the rules Wizards and Warlocks and even other Sorcerers expect don’t always apply.” Shelf tipped his own drink to his lips. 

“Interesting,” Alvi replied. 

“Yes!” agreed Shelf. “And I can’t speak for any other wild magic sorcerers, but I find my Font of Magic is tied closely to how I’m feeling at any given time. Therefore…” He kept talking, with Alvi nudging him along with the “oh”s and “ah”s and “is that so”s dictated by polite society. Alvi wondered what this had to do with his own sleight-of-hand tricks, but it seemed that Shelf had long since forgotten exactly why he had decided to strike up a conversation in the first place. The longer the night stretched, the more jarring the shifts in topic became, with Shelf hopping from one train of thought to one chugging in the opposite direction at an ever-increasing pace. After a while, Alvi could compare Shelf to the sun on a muggy day—utterly exhausting. So Alvi found himself imbibing more than he initially intended. 

The conversation eventually turned from Shelf rambling about whatever flitted across him mind to Shelf once again needling Alvi for the secrets behind his illusions. The corner of Alvi’s mind that was still sober, meanwhile, was calculating how high their tab was running, and it wasn’t happy with the results. Sadly, Alvi liked Puddlemore a little too much to risk being banned for skipping out on the bill. 

“Hey,” Alvi said, cutting off Shelf mid-sentence. He was in the middle of theorizing that Alvi’s rabbit in the hat trick was Alvi pulling bunnies from some separate plane of existence as opposed to putting them in a secret compartment in the bottom of the hat. “I have a little problem.” 

“Yes?” Shelf replied, leaning forward. 

“There’s no fuckin’ way I can afford the tab we’re running,” Alvi slurred. “If you float the bill, I’ll tell you how I do my magic. _All_ my magic.” 

Shelf’s brows knit together. “Hm. Well, I don’t have any money,” he said apologetically. 

Alvi didn’t bother thinking about the next words he said until they were already out of his mouth: “Okay. How about we rob a bank?” 

Shelf didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Let’s go.” 

“Huh?” 

“Let’s rob a bank!” he smiled. 

_This is a bad idea_, thought Alvi. “There’s a window in the bathroom we can crawl in and out through,” said Alvi. “We’ll pay when we get back.” 

“Let’s go,” replied Shelf. 

_This is a_ really _bad idea_, thought Alvi. 

* * *

The cool, quiet night was a welcome change after the heat and cacophony of the pub. It wasn’t silent, no. There was the scuff of shoes on cobblestones. Laughter echoing out of an alley. The singing of cicadas and the rumble of toads. The slight scratching of metal tools in a padlock. 

“Shelf!” Alvi hissed. “You still keeping watch?” 

“Yes!” Shelf lied, snapping his attention from the stars overhead to the street below. Stars like tiny lights like tiny peepholes through which angels could gaze down on their terrestrial activities. It was a nice thought. It didn’t cross Shelf’s mind that maybe those angels would object to what they were doing. 

“Shelf,” began Alvi, his top hat pushed back, his frown making his neat handlebar mustache tilt sideways. 

Whoops, Shelf had been off in his own world again. 

“Do you know _any_ spells that could help me out down here?” asked the magician. 

“Hmmm,” Shelf replied, running through the list of spells he knew. Prestidigitation, Hypnotic Pattern, Animate Objects, and so forth. “Not as such, no. Do you?” 

“If I did, do you think I’d be doing this?” Alvi snapped. He had been at it long enough that Shelf, at least, was mostly sober. 

“Getting any closer?” 

“Buddy, I can’t see shit down here. The lock’s picked when the lock’s picked,” Alvi said, just as a warm glow encompassed the two. “Thanks for the light,” he said, and then muttered something about Shelf’s usefulness. 

“That isn’t—" 

Shelf was cut off by a third voice. “What are you doing?” 

Shelf and Alvi turned to see a stockily-built man in city guard armor, holding a lantern before him, with his other hand on the hilt of his shortsword. The jig was up. 

Shelf raised his hands over his head. “I’m sor—” 

Alvi was on his feet faster than Shelf could blink, his knees dusty from the dirt, his elbow now lodged in Shelf’s ribs. “Good evening, officer! Lovely night, isn’t it? Perfect for a stroll,” Alvi said, his tone light and chatty. 

The city guardsman didn’t take his hand off the hilt of his sword. “Is that what you were up to, now? Looks to me like you’re trying to break into this bank right here.” 

Shelf knew better than to interrupt whatever was going on here, so he contented himself with rubbing his sore side. 

Alvi guffawed in response. “I guess it does look like that!” 

“Exactly like that.” 

“You see, we were hired by the banker to test the integrity of the security.” 

The guard’s stance relaxed a touch, but he kept his hand on the sword hilt. “At night?” 

“Which is exactly when thieves are most likely to strike! All we do is recreate the circumstances under which these scoundrels operate to assess the locks most efficaciously.” 

“Then you would have no problem with me supervising this whole operation, right?” 

Shelf saw the right side of Alvi’s mouth twitch. 

The guardsman continued, taking his hand of the sword hilt. “Just to make sure you leave everything where it’s supposed to be.” 

A surprised look flashed across Alvi’s face for a moment before being replaced once again by the affable grin of a snake-oil salesman. “Quite right!” Alvi dropped back down to his knees and got back to picking the lock. “Now, I’d say this lock here is more than sufficient to keep the building safe, but if you could just move that lantern to the left a bit…thank you!” Shelf heard the soft click of the lock’s tumblers shifting into position, and the double doors eased open once the padlock was removed. 

The guardsman lowered his lantern. “So, you’re done. You can relock the door and move along.” 

“Not quite,” Alvi replied. We need to check all the locks, and that includes those to the vault inside, which is perhaps the most important one.” 

The guard studied Alvi’s face. He looked up and down the street and huffed once. “’Sa quiet night anyways. I’ll humor you. But I’m coming inside, too.” 

“We wouldn’t have it any other way, officer! Please, after you.” Alvi stepped back and gestured for the city guardsman to enter. 

Following behind, Alvi jerked his head towards the guardsman’s back and hit the palm of his open hand with his other fist. Shelf understood the message. 

The guardsman asked, “You want me to put out this lantern so you can try this in the dark again?” 

“That would be most helpful!” Alvi replied, dripping with geniality. 

“Right.” The guardsman lifted the lantern’s hood and blew out the flame, before setting the lantern on a nearby counter. He didn’t have time to do much else before Shelf had said a few quick words, made a couple precise hand motions, and two quills had zoomed through the slits on the guardsman’s helmet. The guardsman yelped as the writing utensils began burrowing into his eyes, into his brain. His knees buckled, before he fell forward, unmoving. Shelf’s own intact eyes had adjusted enough to see the dark blood begin to trickle in a stream out of the late guardsman’s helmet. 

Then, from the back room, came a flash of light, a cry of “Shit!” and what sounded like a body hitting the ground. Shelf felt around on the counter for the lantern, before finding it and prestidigitating a flame for the wick. 

“Shelf, that you?” It was Alvi’s voice. 

Once he had entered the back room, Shelf’s eyes alighted on his companion, tied up and mildly singed, slumped against a wall. “What did you do?” he asked. 

“How was I s’posed to know the vault was trapped?!” Alvi shot back. 

“You didn’t think to cast Detect Magic?” 

“Are you going to untie me or not?” 

“Do you know Prestidigitation? Mage Hand? Unseen Servant?” Alvi was starting to seem strangely helpless for an accomplished magic-user in Shelf’s eyes. 

“No, no, and no,” Alvi replied. 

Shelf knelt down to loosen his companion’s bonds. “There,” he said, picking apart the final knot. 

Alvi mumbled a thanks. “If I had any money to bet,” he continued, standing up. “I’d bet that guards are gonna be here in a few mi--” 

He was cut off by a crossbow bolt whizzing between himself and Shelf. 

* * *

Alvi saw Shelf’s eyes go wide as he realized what was going on. 

A voice bellowed from the front, “THAT WAS A WARNING SHOT. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP. THE NEXT ONE WON’T BE A WARNING.” 

Shelf yelled back, “DON’T WORRY! WE’RE JUST HERE TO TEST THE SECURITY!” 

“_Shut up_,” Alvi hissed. One of the guards loosed another bolt. Alvi dropped to the ground to avoid it hitting his face. “OKAY, OKAY, WE’RE COMING OUT, NOW,” he called out. 

Shelf protested. “What about robbing the—” 

“I like my odds of survival in jail much better than my odds here,” Alvi replied, shifting to a standing position, both arms over his head. 

Shelf followed suit, and the two edged into the front room. 

All the guards seemed ready to attack. Alvi didn’t consider himself a particularly dangerous criminal, so this seemed blown way out of proportion. That is, it seemed blown out of proportion until he saw the guardsman he had hoodwinked into letting them in. Completely motionless, face down in a puddle of his own blood. 

Hands still over his head, Alvi gave Shelf a glance. No reaction from him. Did he not see the body? “Holy shit, Shelf, what did you do to him?” he asked in a lowered voice. 

“Didn’t you want him out of the way?” Shelf whispered back, innocently. Alvi felt sick. 

“STOP WHISPERING!” one of the guards yelled. 

Alvi could comply with that. “What the _fuck_, man?” he asked Shelf, his voice coming out shriller than intended. 

“STOP TALKING TO EACHOTHER!” 

“Fine!” Alvi said. 

“ARE EITHER OF YOU MAGIC USERS?” 

_We’re in the same room. Shut up, will you?_ Alvi thought. “I’m not,” he answered, just as Shelf was saying “We are.” 

Shelf shot Alvi a surprised look. “You aren’t?!” Alvi noticed that what little light hit him seemed…wrong, somehow. Bent in spots, distorting his features like an object in water. 

“Of course I’m not!” 

“You lied to me?” Shit, why the hell did Shelf’s eyes look like the inside of a kaleidoscope? 

“Yes!” 

“STOP TALKING TO EACH OTHER!” the guard cut in once again. 

“No!” Shelf shot back. His hair moved in tendrils around his face, less like fire and more like seaweed. 

Alvi wasn’t entirely sure what happened next, just that the room was suddenly filled with blue lights, surprised shouts, pink bubbles, and thick fog. 

He was trying to unsheathe a dagger when a war hammer came down a little too close to his head, smashing into the wood flood and showering him in splinters. With about five feet of visibility around him, he dodged and weaved in the direction he remembered the door being. Shelf was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t matter to Alvi nearly as much as not taking an arrow to any of his favorite limbs. 

He had run out of the way of a mace swing when he tripped over something. Something floating and squishy and _alive_. He had only gotten a glance at it, but he could have sworn it was a jellyfish with a couple more eyes than was right. 

Thoughts that weren’t his own shivered through his mind: _He’s over here!_

Alvi felt a strong hand on his shoulder, and an even stronger sword hilt crack into the back of his head. 

He came to who knows how many hours later, alone in a jail cell. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shelf Penumbra currently lives in the innermost circle of Hell with his less-than-enthusiastic girlfriend. He is now five flumphs who share one mind. He still writes poetry.
> 
> Alvi the Astounding eventually escaped jail, and currently spends his free time fighting off angry bunnies in the Elemental Plane of Rabbits with the help of Arya, an infamously skilled ranger. When he dies, he has a deal with Shelf’s girlfriend to lure Shelf away from her in exchange for a good plot of land. He intends to hold up his side of the deal.
> 
> The flumph who ratted out Alvi is now shunned by the townspeople for being a dirty narc.


End file.
